


The Nature of the Universe

by mydogwatson



Series: Virtual Postcard Tales [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bees, London, Love, M/M, Redbeard - Freeform, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: Sherlock contemplates his life.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Virtual Postcard Tales [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827328
Comments: 18
Kudos: 74





	The Nature of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, folks. Hope this finds everyone doing well in these dangerous times. If, like me, you seek refuge with our favorite detective and his doctor, I hope you will welcome this little offering. It might add to your enjoyment if you have read my recent story The Awkward Age, although this story can stand on its own. As always, I look forward to hearing from you.
> 
> Take care.

People [AKA idiots] always seem to believe that love is a foreign concept to me. I suppose that is because I do not, as they say, wear my proverbial heart on my Belstaff sleeve. People, as usual, are quite wrong. It is simply that I know what a cruel place the world can be and so I keep myself to myself. That protects me.

The truth is, I fell in love for the first time when I was seven years old. Exactly, seven, in fact, because it was on my birthday that a wriggling ball of soft red fur arrived in my life. For the first time, I understood the idea of having a friend. Soppy over the damned dog, is what Mycroft always said. But he was just jealous, I think.

*

It was barely a year later when I first held a violin in my hands. It was not love at first sight.

Giving me the instrument was primarily an act of desperation by Mummy, hoping that it might capture my attention and occupy my mind a bit. The first sounds I made sent Redbeard running to hide under my bed, but I persevered, primarily to show up Mycroft, who could not even whistle a tune, let alone play an instrument.

Then, after several months of lessons and countless hours of practice, I stood in my bedroom and played the _Minuet in G_ by Beethoven flawlessly from beginning to end. Redbeard sat on the bed and listened to it quietly, so I knew it had been good. For the first time, I was really aware of the feel of the smooth, warm wood beneath my fingers. It felt...good. And later that night, when I repeated the performance for my family and they—even Mycroft—applauded me, I knew that the violin would always be a part of my life. Not because of the applause. Or not only the applause, at least. It simply felt right to me, holding the instrument, making lovely sounds. The wood and the wire had become an extension of my body while I wasn’t looking. Surprised by love, it seemed.

Also, Mummy said I played like an angel.

*

The third time I fell in love, I was ten.

As I understand it, holiday romances are common and that was what happened to me, as trite as it sounds. We were staying at a small hotel in deepest Sussex and I was bored. Mummy was using the peace and quiet to work on a paper for some journal and Daddy was reading a thick tome about Ancient Greek art. They expected Mycroft and I to appear in the hotel dining room for breakfast and be on hand for wherever the family was going to have dinner, but between those two meals, we were left to our own devices. I had no idea what Mycroft got up to, although a nearby patisserie no doubt featured prominently. As for me: I lost my heart again.

The day it happened started just like anything other. Except that perhaps the sky was a particularly appealing shade of blue and the breeze seemed scented with an entire garden’s worth of flowers. It is possible that my memory might be a bit romanticised. Despite my many protestations to the contrary, I _am_ merely human.

After I ate the toast and honey that I wanted and the scrambled eggs that Mummy insisted I also consume, I set off to explore. A pirate just arrived in a strange land, armed only with a packet of chocolate digestives and a small carton of Ribena. I lacked a first mate, of course, as Redbeard was boarding while we were here. I missed him.

I chose a new direction that morning, one a bit more rural, in the hope that it might lead me to something new and different. And it did.

First, there was the field of wildflowers. So many colours, so many scents. I sat down on an ancient tree stump just at the edge of the field to eat my biscuits and drink the Ribena. Almost immediately, I noticed the bees and the way they seemed to be pirouetting through the flowers. It was fascinating to observe and reminded me of the dance classes I had recently started and which I enjoyed tremendously.

I watched for a very long time before realising that the bees all seemed to be following a specific path from the meadow. After quickly finishing my snack, I headed off in that same direction.

When I saw the man, arrayed in protective gear, I stood for quite some time, just watching him move from hive to hive. Even at ten, my mind was a restless creature, which explained various visits to the headmaster’s office and several subsequent suspensions. But, somehow, watching the beekeeper at his routine made everything go quiet, the way few other things did.

When the man noticed me, I was tempted to flee, for fear that he would be angry at my intrusion and say something mean to me. If that happened, it would spoil the wonderful time I’d been having. But my feet would not move.

“Fine day for a walk,” was what the man said, however, and there was nothing but kindness in his voice.

“I quite like your bees,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he replied gravely. He removed the hat and revealed a tanned face, blond hair turning to silver, and soft brown eyes.

“Do they make good honey?”

“Excellent honey.” He walked over to where a knapsack lay nearby. “I was about to take some into the village shop to sell.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a small jar filled with a thick amber substance. “Here, you can try it and see what you think.”

I took the honey, but if he thought to be rid of me with the gift, it did not work, because I walked with him towards the village, asking question after question and knowing even then that one day I would be a beekeeper as well.

Every day for the rest of our holiday, I visited Mr Lang. He even found a properly-sized suit of protective gear that had belonged to his son when he was my age and let me wear it to accompany him around the hives. I was stung once, but that was completely my own fault, so I held no grudge.

I never saw Mr Lang again, after that summer, but I never forgot those days with his bees.

*

I solved my first case when I was fourteen.

Sometimes I consider that the drowning of Carl Powers was my first mystery, but since I did not actually _solve_ that one until years later [through no fault of my own] it is probably more accurate to see the case of Maggie Green as the one that launched my career.

It was the one that made me love detective work.

She should have gone to the police, of course. A young girl who was raped had absolutely no business coming to a teenaged boy to seek justice. I have no idea even now what she thought I could do. But she did not want her fundamentalist parents to find out that she had even gone to the party where it happened, never mind to discover that she was no longer a virgin. Why that fact was worse than the truth that she had been attacked and violated made no sense to me then. Or now, for that matter.

Maggie was the cousin of a classmate. Not a friend, of course, but not an enemy either. We sometimes shared a lab table in chemistry class and Duncan was not a complete idiot. Apparently my occasional conversation about one or another of the crimes in the newspaper that I solved lead him to believe that I could track down his cousin’s assailant.

And I did.

It was my first time going undercover. I posed as a young and precocious new student at the second-rate college both the rapist and his victim attended. The details of the case are too obvious and trite to recount again, but very quickly, I discovered the culprit [the black sheep son of a very minor MP] and reported to his father what he was getting up to. Maggie got a tidy cash payment, the attacker left the college and her parents were none the wiser. I suppose that was a happy ending.

Most importantly, I knew at that point what my life would be. Even if I did not know then the long and bumpy road that I would have to travel to get there.

*

Can one fall in love with a city?

I had always known London, of course. It was a place to be visited on special occasions. Birthday lunches at Simpson’s, followed by a matinee. Evening jaunts to see the Christmas lights on Regent Street and drink hot cocoa while ignoring one’s elder brother’s teasing. Day trips to spend Saturday afternoons at the British Museum.

So, yes, I knew and enjoyed London.

But when I was sixteen, Mummy and Daddy went to America so she could attend some academic conference and since it was during the school holidays, I was deposited at Mycroft’s London flat. He was already on the lower rungs of governmental power and scrabbling to rise higher, with no time or desire to play nanny, thank goodness. So he gave me a key, made sure I had sufficient funds and turned me loose on the city.

It was a glorious fortnight.

I learned London, inhaled it, embraced it. From early mornings at the Smithfield Market and late nights in Soho, to endless walks through the parks and illicit midnight excursions into Brompton Cemetery. The city seemed to insinuate itself into the marrow of my bones and lodge itself into whatever passes as my soul.

When I die, I want my ashes to be taken to the roof of the Elizabeth Tower and scattered over the city.

*

It was a lifetime later before I fell in love again. For the last time.

Unsurprisingly, the whole thing was quite absurd.

I was working undercover, for the first time in some years, sitting in the dining room of a care home when I saw him walk in. Limp in, actually. He was a small man, who most often carried himself proudly; currently, however, he was hesitant and slow. He did not want to be in that place, was not ready to give up completely, but he needed something, a spark of excitement, to spur him back to life.

It took some time before he noticed me, sat as I was in the corner, but then our eyes met and held for far too long to be socially acceptable. One of the ladies sitting at the table said something to him about me, no doubt a negative comment. I wondered if it would put him off. [Clearly, I did not know the truth of the man.]

Neither did I know in that moment, of course, that I would soon be in love with John Watson. We were both far past the age when such a thing usually happened and we had both accepted solitude as our natural state. More or less. But in the dining room of the Happy Valley Residential and Convalescent Home, two men saw one another and everything changed.

Redbeard. The bees. My violin. Mysteries. London. And, finally, John Watson.

The universe took a very long time, but it finally got things right and put us together. Since our adventure at Happy Valley, a decade has gone by very quickly. Sometimes I look back and try to understand how it all happened and, when my mood is especially dark, curse that it did not happen much sooner. I never mention those thoughts to John, of course, as he would only smile, plant a kiss in my curls and make us tea.

On this night, my reverie has lasted too long, apparently. He is calling for me to leave off my brooding in front of the fireplace and come to bed. Out of habit, I grumble a bit as I bank the flames, lock up the cottage and bid the dog a good night. 

And then I go to John.

*

_The goal of life is to make_  
your heartbeat match the beat  
of the universe. -Campbell, J. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: The Nature of the Universe by Lucretius


End file.
